Strategic Flexibility Is the Lodestar for India's US Policy

New Delhi went into the bargaining game with an eye on mutual benefits and expanding the pie rather than dividing a fixed pie—and it has worked

- Sreeram Chaulia

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's highly anticipated meeting with United States (US) President Donald Trump to set the course for bilateral relations between India and the US under the new American administration offered a demonstration of the value of strategic flexibility. With Trump rattling all foreign counterparts through characteristically hardline demands and complaints, the way Modi handled Trump's transactional nature while advancing the long-term strategic elements of the India-US friendship was surely a diplomatic feat.

India is too independent and ambitious a power to follow a path of appeasement of the US. But being mindful of the overall gains of the US-India's comprehensive global strategic partnership and aware that India's quest to become a leading power in the world cannot be accomplished without close economic, technological, military, and geopolitical coordination with the US, Delhi has adopted a smart diplomacy toolkit. Conceding here and there on headline issues, such as illegal immigration, while deepening the alignment with the US to build India's sinews and keep China under check is the formula guiding India's plan to manage and influence Trump early in his second term.

Trump explicitly stated that India is no pushover after meeting Modi, whom he labelled "a much tougher negotiator than me" and added that "there is not even a contest." For a politician like Trump, who loves to brag that he always wins with every foreign counterpart, to even admit indirectly that he did not get everything he sought from Modi shows that New Delhi went into the bargaining game with an eye on mutual benefits and expanding the pie rather than dividing a fixed pie.